5 Most Important Life skills you should teach Your child

Life skills are valuable skills or abilities which enable a person to deal effectively with the challenges they face in life. Though our children might need these skills when they handle real life situations later in life, childhood is just the right time to jump start on teaching them to our children.

These life skills will help our children to learn to become independent as well as self-sufficient. Besides, these will help them feel empowered and in developing self-esteem as they grow up. Life skills will teach them to take control of situations wherein their parents and teachers are not around to make a decision for them.

The 5 most important life skills that we can teach our children include:

1. The decision-making skills: Allow your child to make simple decisions like whether to eat chocolate or ice cream, to wear jeans or pajamas or to play UNO or Business or which activity to participate in school or even whom to be friends with. By taking their own decisions from a young age in life they would learn that bad decisions can have consequences and this would teach them to wisely make a choice whenever available. As a parent our role would be to help them weigh their options, evaluate the pros and cons with them of making a particular choice, then allow them to decide for themselves rather than taking a decision every time for them.

2. Cleaning and organizational skills: This involves not just teaching them the basics of personal hygiene and importance of healthy habits like bathing everyday, brushing their teeth, washing their hands, etc. but also keeping their surroundings clean. Involving the child in simple age related chores at home like watering the plants, , bathing the pet, putting the toys back at their place, clearing their desks after studies, making their bed,etc. All these activities would instill a sense of responsibility towards their home. They would also learn the concept of organizational skills which would be very beneficial to them as they grow up. Involving them in day-to-day household chores would also strengthen the bond that you share with your child.

3. Time management: Balance is very important be it between family and work, study and play and more. So with this skill they will learn to follow a schedule and do tasks accordingly. By doing so they will value time and complete their homework and other tasks on time and will have enough time to play and indulge in co-curricular activities as well. Finishing their tasks at a designated time will also save them from being awake late at night or missing out on fun due to pending work. 

4. Money management: Teaching them at a young age how to count money they have collected in their piggy bank for weeks and then buy something useful with it can become a life skill which would be quite useful to them even later on as they grow up . They would save money and use it for something worthwhile rather than being a spendthrift and wasting their paycheck in buying expensive watches or perfumes. In which case they will have to depend on friends or family to repay their loans and face embarrassment or even lose important valuables like car or a house on being unable to repay it. 

5. Developing Empathy: This life skill can be taught to children from simple everyday things like reading out story books to them or in real life situations from our behavior as we are their first role models. For instance - the way we treat our household help or how we behave with their grandparents is being observed by the child day in and day out and they imbibe it over the years of their growing up. Children always enjoy listening to stories and even learn a lot from them. Discuss the underlying message with them by saying something like "This is how the child helped an old lady cross the road" or even asking them to "Bring a glass of water for Daddy as he comes back from work." This will help them understand the point of view of another person and even empathise with them.

These life skills will give a new dimension to their thinking and solving skills. They will be better prepared to recognize the impact of their actions and take responsibility for those rather than blame others. Besides, it will develop a greater sense of self-awareness and appreciation for others. These life skills taught to them today will help our children develop into responsible adults tomorrow whom we will be proud of!